Cooking with altitude

Trade secrets: Chris Percy-Davis and Eve learn how to keep guests well fed

Christopher Middleton

12:01AM GMT 22 Nov 2003

Once upon a time, a chalet girl was someone who was paid next to no wages and could cook shepherd's pie. Today, it is a different story. "You wouldn't dream of serving anything as down-market as mince, or even a casserole," says a horrified Lucy Bomford, the co-principal of the Orchards Cookery School in Evesham, Worcestershire. "Today's chalet guests are looking for restaurant-quality standards."

This is why her pupils have paid £460 for a five-day chalet cook's course. Menus include whipped avocado with tuna and diced tomato, and chicken breast stuffed with spinach, Parmesan and pine kernels.

Two days ago, some of these students weren't sure how to cook an omelette. Now they are turning out delicate creamy desserts. It is not just the innocent arts of baking and steaming that are being passed on here, but the more worldly wise secrets of professional chalet hosting. Girls are advised to cook twice as much as they need and freeze half for the following week's guests. They are also told to cook more vegetables than meat because it is cheaper.

Rule one for any chalet girl (or boy) is that you should leave time to get out on the slopes. "If you are organised, you can be out skiing at 11am and not have to be back till 6pm," says Lucy's sister, Isabel Bomford, 28. The sisters co-run the cookery school from the rambling 200-year-old farmhouse where they grew up.

"Both Lucy and I adore skiing, and we both absolutely loved being chalet girls," says Isabel. "It is true that the wages aren't great (£80- £100 per week), but you get free board and lodging and half-price drinks because you know all the local bar staff. You also get a free ski pass, which in somewhere like Val d'Isere would cost £120 a week."

Tips are another perk. "If you make your guests feel looked after, you can more than double your wages," says Isabel. "One girl got seven £200 tips at the end of one week."

The trouble is, a lot of would-be chalet girls aren't all that well-drilled in the domestic department. "Most of the girls have never cleaned a loo. Mind you, once they start chalet hosting they learn about life pretty fast. I met one girl who had had a guest give birth on the chalet sofa," says Isabel.

Fortunately, most chalet holidays are less eventful. "Most of the time, all you need to do is to make sure that the place is clean and the evening meal is on the table on time," says Lucy.

Orchards pupils are given a chunky blue manual detailing each day's menus and recipes and suggesting how to fill every working minute to advantage. While guests are tucking into their breakfast croissants, for example, a good chalet girl should be dicing up the evening's vegetables. Stick to the manual, pupils are told, and you are guaranteed happy guests plus maximum time for yourself.

Chris Percy-Davis, 29, is one of two male pupils. He is going to Meribel to cook for a British family, while James Colquhoun, 25, is running a chalet in Chamonix for the season. School-leavers Eve Penhaligon from Guildford and Harriet Milligan from Aberdeen are new to the business, but the good news is that there is a shortage of chalet girls.

"For the past four years, ski firms have found it very difficult to recruit resort staff," says Isabel. "There was a BBC documentary that showed chalet girls getting so drunk they couldn't go in to work and that put off the parents of the public schoolgirls who have traditionally gone into chalet hosting."

The other big difficulty facing ski companies is that newly arrived chalet girls frequently find they can't cope, and go home within the first month. This, however, is not a fate that should befall the Orchards alumni, though they wouldn't have said that two days ago.